The Philadelphia Flyers were busy during the late afternoon as they first acquired Denis Gurianov from the Nashville Predators for Wade Allison before acquiring veteran defenseman, Erik Johnson, from the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for a 2024 4th round pick.
General manager, Daniel Brière, was adamant that he wanted to acquire depth ahead of their potential playoff push and he did that in spades with Gurianov as the goal scoring winger for the bottom-6 and now with Johnson on the back-end. With Rasmus Ristolainen, Jamie Drysdale, and Nick Seeler all on IR, the Flyers were forced into playing Ronnie Attard and Adam Ginning in last night’s victory against the Florida Panthers. Johnson’s arrival gives them much needed depth at the position with a condensed schedule upcoming.
Johnson was originally drafted with the first overall selection in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft by the St. Louis Blues. He wound up playing in just parts of 3 seasons with the Blues where he scored 20 goals and 91 points across 203 games but averaged 20:31 TOI and delivered 224 hits and blocked 233 shots – establishing himself as a big-bodied presence on the back-end.
He was then moved to the Colorado Avalanche for a package surrounding Kevin Shattenkirk and would be a mainstay on their back-end for 13 seasons. He chipped in with 68 goals and 246 points in 717 games, averaged 21:33 TOI, and blocked 1,361 shots to his 1,269 hits. He played a pivotal role en route to the Avalanche winning the Stanley Cup in 2021-22, chipping in with 5 points, was a plus-10, averaged 17:01 TOI, and delivered 79 hits to go along with 29 blocked shots.
He signed with the Sabres as a free agent on a $3.25 million deal for just one year. In 50 games this season, Johnson has seen his role decrease with just 13:48 of ice time to go along with 3 goals and no assists. He is still providing his natural brand of physicality with 93 hits and 68 blocked shots but perhaps a change of scenery will do the veteran some good.
Standing in at 6’4” and weighing in at around 225 pounds, the right-handed shooting defenseman should provide the Flyers with just enough depth until the reinforcements make their returns. I also don’t think the Flyers want to run Attard and Ginning into the ground, especially with the gauntlet they’re about to run, so we may see some lineup changes taking place over the course of the next week or so once Johnson is ready.
